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Consider this scenario: Your organization bought a software license or subscription of a Content Relationship Management (CRM) tool for internal use. You start using the tool enthusiastically. But, with time, the enthusiasm dies, you get bored with the software, and the usage levels drop. Even though the software works fine, you fall back to excel sheets to manage customers, and conditions across the organization go back to the same. Continuous reminders for how to use the tool don’t bring you back, and finally it is decided that the current software is not sufficient for your organization’s needs. A new tool is needed.

While the SaaS models generally allow contract cancellation at any point of time, switching to different software every now and then doesn’t really help the cause.

One possible solution for such situations is gamification. As you may be aware, gamification means the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to software. Not only does it help engage users, it can even be helpful in improving the user performance because of the competitive atmosphere it creates. As with almost everything else under the sun, the open source way has found its way inside gamification tools as well.

Benefits of using gamification

User engagement

The human evolution process has made sure we do more when we compete. Its been proved time and again, competition brings out the best in us. Gamification lets you competition-ize the mundane and boring tasks, giving the users a motivation.

Accomplish tasks

With increased engagement, gamification also helps in achieving task closure, so you can expect quicker updates of the software by users.

Behavioural data

For fields such as ecommerce, or any web-based business for that matter, behavioural data holds the key to hidden treasures. Armed with user’s behaviour trends, you can optimize a website best suited to their needs. With gamification, acquiring behavioural data is lot easier. You need to just monitor the scores of games placed at strategic locations on web pages.

2 open source tools

Zurmo

Zurmo is a gamified, open source CRM tool; covered last year among our top five CRM tools. Gamified to the core, Zurmo is a great example of functionality integrated with gamification. As a fully functional, enterprise CRM tool, Zurmo has all the features you’d wish for in a CRM: from lead management and opportunity management to marketing and project tracking. It Also, Zurmo’s parent company recently acquired. Zurmo.org will continue supporting the community though, and you can check out the demo here.

User infuser

User infuser is an open source platform that provides customizable gamification elements designed to increase user interaction on websites. The project involves badging, points, live notifications, and leaderboards. Additionally, the platform provides analytics to track user participation. You can use it to integrate gamification to your own project. The source code is available here.

Know about any more gamified tools? Let us know in the comments below.

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About the author

Nitish Tiwari - Nitish is a software developer by profession & an open source enthusiast by heart. As a tech author for Linux based magazines, he covers new Open Source tools. He loves to read and explore anything open source. In his free time, he likes to read motivational books. He is currently building DevUp - a platform to let developers connect all their tools and embrace DevOps in a true manner. You can follow him on twitter ... more about Nitish Tiwari

Bored using software ? Now you know how most of humanity feels about their jobs. How long ago did Pink Floyd put out "Welcome to the Machine"? You know that wasn't just about the music business right ? It was about all business and in effect all of developed societies.

Of course there are those lucky few touted by media who escape the drudgery along with the claim of you can be anything you want blah, blah, blah, The world would fall apart if all the drones decided to just stay home for the day. Get real.

Bored using software ? Now you know how most of humanity feels about their jobs. How long ago did Pink Floyd put out "Welcome to the Machine"? You know that wasn't just about the music business right ? It was about all business and in effect all of developed societies.

Of course there are those lucky few touted by media who escape the drudgery along with the claim of you can be anything you want blah, blah, blah, The world would fall apart if all the drones decided to just stay home for the day. Get real.

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